XX Factor: the blog

Should Everybody Revisit Their Opinions on Pronouns?

My grammar-sensitive family is in a tizzy over the “On Language” column from this weekend’s New York Times Magazine on the absence of a gender-neutral singular pronoun, a source of copy editing agony that has most recently surfaced on Twitter. In truth, the 140-character limit of the Twitterverse adds very little to an issue that word nerds have long struggled with: the sentence contortions of someone trying to avoid misusing “they” or relying on the gendered “he.” Who among us hasn’t tried at some point alternating his pronouns between “he” and “she,” or scratched her head over whether he/she or s/he looks less belabored?

Authors Patricia T. O’Connor and Stewart Kellerman (Safire’s on vacation) bring some interesting historical tidbits to the discussion. (Feel free to disregard their Twitter quotes, though. Nothing but an attempt to make a stodgy topic feel 2.0.) In a difficult tidbit for Strunk and White enthusiasts to digest, they say that “they” was actually accepted as a singular pronoun (as in “Everybody should lower their voices”) going back as far as Chaucer. The person who suggested subbing in “he” as the default singular pronoun was actually a woman: Anne Fischer, a feminist entrepreneur and grammarian who, like me, just couldn’t stomach the plural “they” being forced into the role of epicene.

I’m curious where others stand on this debate. Any chance of hu or shhe taking off, or are they doomed to an Esperanto-like fate? Should grammar snobs suck it up and agree to use “they” in place of he/she—a suggestion that horrifies my mother, who wrote in an e-mail that she found it “most distressing, to think that even English language mavens are starting to approve of this corruption.” My cousin added that “if this history checks out, we might have some serious pet peeve revisions to do as a family.” (We already lost the battle on another family-wide pet peeve, “nauseous,” which formerly meant only inspiring nausea—grounds for a good, admittedly snooty, chuckle when people mistakenly described themselves as such.)

Personally, I’m with Fischer, and would rather agree to treat “he” as gender-free. When I’ve tried to stray from that, I encounter the awkward dance of dodging gender stereotypes: If my attempt to alternate leaves me with “Every doctor should wash his hands” and “The teacher should respect her students,” do I pull a pronoun switcheroo lest I accidentally imply that being a doctor is a man’s job and a teacher a woman’s?

Tags: gender, grammar, new york times, on language

Samantha Henig is the associate editor of Double X, and can be reached at samantha.henig@doublex.com.

Comments

Cretins, bastards, shut

By: lysdexia | Thu, 07/30/2009 - 01:30

Cretins, bastards, shut up:
http://twitter.com/alysdexia/status/2925125254

Die as English has:
http://google.com/groups?q=%22Benj+asks+about+history%22

he and she

By: women make news | Tue, 07/28/2009 - 14:38

I think alternating is the best way to go--and I've done it in paragraphs when the pronouns are not specific.

As someone who has been paid to edit copy (not usually line editing) I have a structural discomfort with using a plural pronoun to be ungendered.

So why not just mix and match he and she?

amy cross
women make news

Obviously it's impossible to

By: rcwilliams83 | Tue, 07/28/2009 - 11:27

Obviously it's impossible to come up with an a priori argument against "they"-singular. If it becomes standard, we'll be in essentially the same place we're in with respect to our second person pronouns: "you" for both singular and plural.

That said, I still won't be using "they"-singular for a while yet, and the reasons why are descriptivist, not prescriptivist, in nature. It's true that if you use "they"-singular, everyone will know what you mean. At the same time, though, it is still a usage that sets off a lot of people's error detection. We're not talking here about once non-standard usages that have become ubiquitous to the point that they are effectively standard now (e.g. "which/that", "who/whom", "as/like", split infinitives, and sentence-ending prepositions); we're talking about using a pronoun that doesn't match the number of its antecedent. If "they"-singular becomes standard to the point where others don't judge me for using it, I'll use it and I'll be happy about it. Until then, I'll muddle through with the pronouns I've always muddled through with.

Admittedly, English has standard constructions that are stranger than "they"-singular. Why do we use plural verbs with singular nouns in conditional clauses? (As in, "If I were you..."). But language change is slow, and decidedly non-deliberate. If "they"-singular becomes standard, I doubt it will have a great deal directly to do with anybody's politico-grammatical agenda.

Woohoo! A grammar controversy!

By: Kozmic Blues | Tue, 07/28/2009 - 10:41

I can a bit pedantic in regards to grammar, but I prefer to save my ire for the truly dastardly errors, like confusing 'who' and 'whom' (the worst is when 'whom' is used incorrectly in an effort to sound 'smarter'). Many languages allow a pronoun to be both plural and singular, several languages that contain a formal register refer to individuals plurally and it's considered more polite! Given english is such a bastardized language, I see no problem with borrowing a bit more from other languages, so 'they' is alright with me. I also do like when people use "she" as a gender neutral pronoun, but I can understand why one would not necessarily want to be seen as making a political statement in say, a work memo or a term paper, which might make life more unpleasant if one has a hostile boss or professor. And really, 'she' isn't gender neutral anymore than 'he'. It just makes some people less uncomfortable to feel like they aren't aligned with the patriarchal value system that imposed 'he' on us to begin with, a sentiment I appreciate, but I prefer to not pick one over the other. Maybe the rule could be that the author can just use their own gender as the 'gender neutral' pronoun of choice?
On a random note, I always liked Turkish. There is no gendered pronoun. The same word is used for he, she, and it. But I doubt it will ever catch on to refer to everyone and everything as 'it' in english.

I am with you and Fischer.

By: ladiesbane | Mon, 07/27/2009 - 21:05

I am with you and Fischer. While I like the idea of a gender-neutral pronoun, I am comfortable using the male form as the generic. Artificial pronouns are terrible, as are words such as "waitron" (say "server"), and "chairperson" (say "chair.")

This is easier for me than for my boss. When I use the male form, I am using good grammar. When he uses it, he is being a sexist (he feels), and prefers to use "he or she".

What irks me is that modern use of "they" for the singular is not growing because we have so many advocates for gender-neutral usage; it's because people aren't taught to do otherwise, don't think about the meaning, and now hear it on the news, see it in advertisements, and even read it in the paper. How many times have I heard "to each their own," "someone needs to do their homework," etc., from sources that used to be ESL teaching tools?

Whatever other issues matter to us, and whatever Chaucer may have written, one person can't be plural. It doesn't make sense.

Suck it up and use they

By: goffers | Mon, 07/27/2009 - 19:23

Prescriptionist grammarian humbugs! Just adapt and use "they." Really, it is not the thin edge of the wedge to syntactical pandemonium. It's grammar, not the bleeding Ten Commandments. "He" really is confusing and "they" really isn't (if you say it is then you are simply being a persnickety contrarian). Consider the following:

A good nurse always double checks his medication dosages.

or

A good nurse always double checks their medication dosages.

Hu and shhe or s/he or whatever are just not going to happen - as well as being ugly looking words.

Just grin and bear it. Adapt, mutate or die.

Suck it up and use they

By: goffers | Mon, 07/27/2009 - 19:23

Prescriptionist grammarian humbugs! Just adapt and use "they." Really, it is not the thin edge of the wedge to syntactical pandemonium. It's grammar, not the bleeding Ten Commandments. "He" really is confusing and "they" really isn't (if you say it is then you are simply being a persnickety contrarian). Consider the following:

A good nurse always double checks his medication dosages.

or

A good nurse always double checks their medication dosages.

Hu and shhe or s/he or whatever are just not going to happen - as well as being ugly looking words.

Just grin and bear it. Adapt, mutate or die.

Read the link

By: everyoneweknow | Mon, 07/27/2009 - 17:56

1. Femme Fatale, you're a copy editor and you still put an apostrophe in the possessive form of "its"?!?

2. Has anyone actually read the "On Language" column that started this discussion? If he had, she would realize that reverting to an assumption about what is "correct" is, in this case as in so many cases, too facile to be true. "They" was once considered correct, then wasn't, and now, possibly, is again.

"he" just ain't gender-neutral

By: pxtot | Mon, 07/27/2009 - 17:47

I recently filed a complaint about a sexist review which I suspected had actually been written by a woman, but I used the pronoun "he" in the complaint in an attempt to be both grammatically correct and gender-neutral.

The administrator who responded to my complaint snottily informed me that I had "assumed incorrectly" about the sex of the reviewer and dismissed the complaint. So I guess next time I'll use "they," no matter how high-school-comp it sounds.

the language clash in my head...

By: staybeautiful | Mon, 07/27/2009 - 17:35

While this is certainly no solution, the fact that French (my other language) uses a possessive related to the gender of the object has always comforted my annoyance with the fact that French nouns have genders in the first place. Whether his or hers, the possessive remains related to the object at hand. E.g. his/her bicycle, which would be sa bicyclette, regardless of whose it is.

On the flip side, when it comes to a subject, it's always male unless it's strictly female. If "they" implies men, then it's "ils..." If it implies women, it's "elles..." If it's a group of both or gender non-specific, then it remains "ils..." Verbs are adjusted accordingly.

I find this convoluted concoction to be relatively easy. Then again, being a native English speaker who has been speaking French most of his life, it could very well be the intensive grammar and language courses I studied the duration of my educational career that allowed me to better understand what should and shouldn't be done in the French language. (An entire tangent could be had from my French colleagues at school not being able to help me with any grammar homework whatsoever.)

What I guess that means, then, is that a language needs a standard. And that standard must be taught throughout one's educational career. Then, we'd all be comfortable with whatever was used as said standard.

Then again, I could just be crazy. After all, I forget English words on a daily basis due to the intensity with which I studied other languages for the vast majority of my life.

So...I guess I don't have an answer. Ha.